donaldsc

Not unusual at this time of the year. The next time you do AK book a cruise pick one that goes to Glacier Bay. You can be fairly certain of making it into GB as opposed to the other glaciers visited on AK cruises. DON

Try the Rome2Rio site. DON

One example on the AK cruise tours that say that you have 2 days in Denali. This is what actually happens. Your train arrives in about noon on day 1. By the time you get into your room it is probably about 2 in the afternoon. On day 2 your train leaves shortly after 1 PM in the afternoon. That means that you have maybe 25 hours in Denali including your sleep time. I can come up with other examples of cruise company misrepresentations if you wish, DON

Do they offer free cabins to officiants of every religion that request them. Again - I have absolutely no problem with providing space in the theater or in a meeting room to a member of the crew or to a passenger to do a service but I have a very big problem to providing a free cabin to an officiant. I do wonder if an officiant from a small religion or an unpopular one would be accorded the same privileges accorded to a large religion such as catholics or a large protestant sect. I really think that cruise lines should just stay out of the religion business and stick to the cruising business. It would make it much easier for them. DON

Is the priest being given free passage or paid by the cruise line so that they can perform masses on board. If so I would find this totally unacceptable since this would mean that my cruise fare is being used to provide a religious service that I do not believe in. This ignores the many people on board who do not believe in catholicism and whose faiths have been treated very badly in the past by the catholic church. Except for allowing space on board for layperson passengers the cruise lines have no business supporting any religion including mine. DON

I would totally disagree w this. If you try to find accurate information on the cruise company's WEB site you will often get inaccurate information and almost always promises that the cruise company wants you to believe will happen on the cruise. DON

My first AK cruise was in the ship that is named the Alaska Dream which was neat because it is a catamaran. However it was a bunch of years ago and it is now owned by a different company (Alan Marine) that has a long history of running AK cruises so my information on the current condition of the vessel is out of date. You might check out the internet for reviews. DON

As of May 23 there are 86 posts on the topic of butter. Hard to believe. DON

If you like sailing vessels check out Star Clipper cruises. https://www.starclippers.com/us-dom/. They are much more pure sailboat cruises than Windstar. DON

The people who gave you that info are not 100% wrong although I would say that looking at an AK trip they are mostly wrong. For many trips to other places there may be something to what they say but not to AK.. There are WEB sites out there that talk about small ship AK cruises. One more thing that I can not emphasize enough. Large AK cruise lines are very good at writing up the tour description to make it seem as if you are getting something that is not quite what it will end up being. Read the cruise descriptions very very carefully and come back to CC if you have any questions before booking. DON

You need to define exactly what you mean by "big ships" and "small ships". You can do AK on anything from a ship that holds 50 people to a ship that holds 5000 people which I call the Monstrosities of the Seas ships. We also do not know your cruising history. One thing that you should remember that AK cruising is different from cruising to places like the Caribbean. If you take a Caribbean cruise the on-ship amenities can be important. When you take an AK what is important is what is outside of the ship and the cruise itinerary. AK itineraries can be tricky and you meed to read them very carefully. The biggest ship of our many AK cruises held about 2500 people and I felt that was bigger than I wished. Our 1st AK cruise was on a ship that held 50 people and it was wonderful. Since then we have done 2 more AK cruises on ships that less than 200 people. They were also wonderful. There are 2 especially wonderful things about the small ships. First of all their trips are sort of flexible. If the ship is here and there is something really interesting over there the ship may be able to head over to the more interesting spot. For example on one of our cruises there was a large pod of whales doing bubble feeding so we headed over to watch them for over an hour. This would never happen on a large ship. Second you will have short off ship expeditions on Zodiacs which will get you really close to to stuff that even the small ship would not get to. My ideal ship size is less than 1000 people. For example we have just booked a cruise to Spain, the Canaries and to northern Africa on a ship that holds 200 people. I will admit that they are more expensive than the larger ships but I live to travel and I also can afford it. Hope that this helps a bit. DON

I would be willing to go on a cruise where EVERYTHING is unbundled. That way I would only pay for what I want. As an example on a cruise where drinks alcoholic and otherwise are included I might have 5 or 10 drinks per day including cokes, tonic water, specialty teas and a couple of glasses of wine. On my recent 8 day cruise where I had to pay for my drinks the bar bill for my wife and I totaled about $20. We should have the opportunity to pay for only what we use. DON

I have been to AK maybe 12 times so I have some preconceived notions about AK trips. If this was my 1st trip I would say that GB is a necessity. In fact Hubbard Glacier would also be a necessity as Hubbard in some ways more spectacular than GB because it is very large and you can get fairly close to it. The problem with Hubbard and also Endicott/Dawes is that while you can be almost certain to get into GB often the ships do not get into the others because of ice. For those who have said that the ship you take to AK is almost as important as the itinerary - I would totally disagree. The ship might be important for a Caribbean but to me the only thing that counts is what is outside of the ship. Just my opinion. DON

Yes. But sometimes No. DON

We have a difference of opinion on sea days. Some people love them. I dislike them intensely. However note that the OP has not answered the questions on asked on my response - # of sea days and cruise length. DON

This is just a very personal opinion. I don't use a lanyard but if I did I think that fancy lanyards are a waste of money. As for customizing the outside of my door - I think that this is just plain silly. My point is that do you think that your friend wants either of these items. A better idea would be to buy them some on board credit so that they could buy something that they really want on the ship. DON

How long is each cruise and how many are wasted sea days? DON

Unless you are taking a prescribed narcotic I can't understand what all this fuss is about pills. I take several of them a day. I put them in small ziplocks in my rucksack and carry them on board and on airplanes as necessary. Nobody has ever looked at them ever. Seems to me that everyone is overreacting about this issue or perhaps I should say non-issue. DON

Yes but why should I have to pay for something else that I will not use. DON

It isn't free and you should know. They will just up the cruise price to pay for it and those of us who don't care if we have WiFi will end up paying for something else that we do not need and do not want. The people who feel that they can not live w/o WiFi should pay for it. DON

I have an interesting take on Viking River Cruises. I have done 2 river cruises and one of them was a Viking Rhone (not Rhine) River cruise. I was a bit disappointed w it because I had too high expectations for it. Everyone who had done Viking river cruise had told me that it was totally wonderful and I would have the best cruising experience of my entire life. It was a good cruise and I would do Viking river if I found a river I wanted to do but it was not as good as I expected. Now the Clipper Cruise line 2 week Greece sailboat cruise was one of my best cruises ever. BTW - if you have not done a Douro River cruise in Portugal you should check them out. I can't remember which line we used for that cruise but it was a high end cruise and the Douro is a great river. DON

Many of them but none of the ones from the lines that the OP has mentioned. I like small ships.w less than 1000 passengers. All of the ships from those lines ar overly large tubs or are floating amusement parks in my opinion. DON

Let me make sure that I understand. This whole thread is basically about a fake booking that you did tot test Princess' customer service just in case you actually decided to book w them Do I have it right. That was a waste of time who thought that you were serious and tried to help you. I apologize if my description of your post is not correct. If it is correct you owe the rest of us an apology. DON

If you had picked it up at the dock it would have added maybe 2 - 3 minutes to your embarkation time. Why did you bother to wait on line. DON

I doubt that it is going to be so cold that you need the chemical hand warmers. If you get cold hands just take a pair of gloves. I am sure that you have checked the long range weather forecasts for the posts you will be visiting at least once, If not there are many good sites that have long range forecasts. DON